„Should the COG members keep on asking proactively their suppliers and manufacturers to use the smartPCN format? Or has this scenario changed with establishing pcn.global by D+D+M as COG Business Partner?

D+D+M Daten- und Dokumentations-Management GmbH & CO.KG is a Business Partner of COG for supporting the implementation and distribution of the smartPCN standard. For this reason the business unit “pcn.global” was founded. In order to implement smartPCN in your company you do not need pcn.global. But there are lots of companies which want to provide their customers, beside the smartPCN standard, with other specific formats. Therefore they can request supportive services from pcn.global. In other words: pcn.global is a catalyst on the way to implement smartPCN. Please ask your manufacturers to provide you with PCN in the smartPCN format. Pcn.global offers, beside analysis and conversion of PCN, also other services like adding of specific in-house part numbers to the requested data sets and monitoring inconming PCN on basis of the Bill of Material (BOM). Currently it cannot be expected that manufacturers offer smartPCN globally.

„Which COG members are currently acitively using the smartPCN format for their own products?”

We do not have current facts at the moment. But if requested, we gladly will conduct a survery of all our members.

“Will pcn.global be able to react with reasonable response times on PCN conversion requests, if all COG members use this service promptly? Because it could be possible that pcn.global has to face hundreds or thousands of PCN conversion requests in less time. “

Our experience from the beginning and pilot projects have proven it: Within four months about 1.700 PCN and more than 100.000 parts were analyzed and converted. A big number of PCN from pilot customers were partly even 6 weeks before available on the manufacturer’s database. This means that the lead time from manufacturer via Distributor to the EMS is significantly long. Every PCN which is registered once, have just to be supplemented by company specific data sets and does not have to be converted again. It is confirmed that one PCN on the manufacturer’s side generates a multiple number of PCN at the customer’s side. For this reason pcn.global is able to offer favourable prices for the conversion service, because with one conversion multiple customers can be served. The generated PCN can be supplemented with customer part numbers, assembly numbers and other required data sets by pcn.global. Incoming PCN will be monitored on basis of the customer specific BOM. Currently 50 PCN are reported and converted on daily average. This results in hundreds of individualized PCN with customer specific data per day. According to pcn.global the mentioned risk is consequently manageable.